The Reds Chose Continuity After 87 Losses, and Chase Burns Is the Only Argument That Holds Up

The Cincinnati Reds finished the 2026 season 75-87, dead last in the NL Central, outscored by 160 runs. And they are running it back.

That's the story of the week in Cincinnati, and it's not really a story about transactions. It's a story about a decision. Per Yahoo Sports, there will be no front office overhaul: president of baseball operations Nick Krall and general manager Brad Meador are staying, with owner Phil Castellini publicly framing it as a commitment — "We have a commitment to this city," he told MLB.com. FanSided's Reds blog read the press conference the other way, arguing the vote of confidence puts the onus squarely back on Krall rather than the Castellinis. Either way, the front office that presided over this season gets to run the next one.

The coaching staff, however, is not intact. Pitching coach Derek Johnson will not return in 2027 after taking a personal leave of absence in June, and assistant hitting coach Will Remillard has been dismissed. MLB Trade Rumors noted the Reds have multiple roles to fill under manager Terry Francona, and the club confirmed a search for Johnson's replacement is already underway. Notably, as Blog Red Machine pointed out, hitting coach Chris Valaika's status has gone unaddressed — a silence that reads louder given the offense's season.

That offense is the crux of the problem. Krall himself acknowledged the Reds need to improve a group that ranked at the bottom of the National League in scoring. The final numbers are ugly across the board: a .227 team average, a .304 on-base percentage, a .694 OPS, and 1,457 strikeouts against just 528 walks. There are 201 home runs in there, so the power isn't hollow — but a lineup that gets on base that rarely is a lineup that needs three hits to score a run.

The pitching side is where continuity gets harder to defend. Cincinnati finished with a 4.70 team ERA — 27th in MLB per the season rankings, ahead of only Kansas City, Oakland, and Colorado — with a 1.43 WHIP and 643 walks. The bullpen was actually the relative strength at 4.03, though 13 blown saves against 18 bullpen saves tells its own story about late-inning reliability. Add Spencer Steer, Hunter Greene, and Blake Dunn all finishing the year on the 60-day IL, and the roster that ran it back was already a compromised one.

So why does anyone believe 2027 looks different? Two names.

Chase Burns is the entire rebuttal. The rookie made 29 starts, went 15-3 with a 2.86 ERA, struck out 185 in 154.1 innings, and posted a 1.17 WHIP — ace-level production on a staff that finished in the bottom four of the league. Blog Red Machine noted the Reds' record in Burns' starts alone suggests an easy path back to contention next season. That's the bet: a legitimate frontline starter plus better health and a competent pitching-coach hire is worth several wins on its own.

Sal Stewart gives the lineup a similar anchor. The 1B played all 162 games, hit .263 with 32 homers and 112 RBI. Elly De La Cruz, in 143 games, put up .283/.365/.515 with 30 home runs and 30 steals — a genuinely elite season buried by what surrounded it.

The tension is that both things can be true: the Reds have real young cornerstones, and they've retained the decision-makers who oversaw the rest of it. Krall has said mid-tier free agency is a priority, and with six players headed to the market, the roster will churn regardless.

The 2027 verdict won't come from the press conference. It'll come from whether the pitching coach hire lands, whether Greene and Steer return healthy, and whether Krall can turn a bottom-tier offense into a functional one without the budget of the teams ahead of him. Running it back isn't automatically wrong. It just means there's no longer anywhere to hide if it doesn't work.